The local food bank here brags about how much food it can get for a dollar all the time. Your $40 and my $40 might not make or break us, but $40/year per family would literally pay all their bills.
You can buy a lot of food for cheap as long as you are not looking at prepared foods. I buy rice in those huge bags now and it forms the basis of all my meals.
Yesterday I had rice with pickles for lunch. Sometimes I add in some strips of chicken. If I want cookies I buy flour, eggs and such and bake from scratch. I save money but it costs me time. Currently I have a surplus of time so it works out.
Well the $40 a week was a reference to a change in the payroll taxes.
I think I had a point somewhere in my head, buried under that thought. Something about how the disparity in wealth means that for some people, that $40 could literally be a windfall that makes all the difference. So rather than viewing them as being poor at managing their finances, what if they're really great... and that $40 to them is a months food or something.
People forget that the "1%" has a ridiculous range to its income. It starts at like 350k per year and goes up to Warren fucking Buffet. There is a problem of scale when discussing these issues; someone might be close to the "1%" and think that when we say "90% marginal tax rate!" we're talking about their 400k per year income.
Ramping the tax rate up to 1 million dollars is stupid. It should graduate up to, fuck, let's try $500 million per year. So graduate the marginal rate from 0 to that upper bound. Here are some arbitrary numbers:
A 90% marginal rate doesn't sound so bad when you're pulling down a billion dollars in revenue. And this is probably a much more realistic tax grade in this country.
And I fail to understand how a high marginal rate is a disincentive to make more money. You still get more money if your gross income goes up - that's why it's a marginal tax rate. Take a scheme like the one up there. Let's look at a guy who makes $200 million and a guy who makes $300 million, gross.
$200 million per year guy gets $49.73 million - the total tax rate is about 75%.
$300 million per year guy gets $67.23 million, making his net income 35% higher than the 200 million guy.
You telling me that you wouldn't work harder to take home an extra $17.5 million per year?
And as for "high tax rates create an incentive to avoid taxes," the super-wealthy already avoid taxes, even at the relatively low tax rates we have now. That problem absolutely will not change.
Well the $40 a week was a reference to a change in the payroll taxes.
I think I had a point somewhere in my head, buried under that thought. Something about how the disparity in wealth means that for some people, that $40 could literally be a windfall that makes all the difference. So rather than viewing them as being poor at managing their finances, what if they're really great... and that $40 to them is a months food or something.
And what if they just buy lottery tickets? Or a couple movies? etc. In our consumerist economy it's very easy for people to make poor financial decisions. What people should do is save the extra money so that it can be invested in an asset that will produce money. Then you have a revenue stream.
Pete, your plan is good except that most of those 0.1%-ers aren't getting a billion a year salary, they're getting stock dividends which are taxed as capital gains.
And what if they just buy lottery tickets? Or a couple movies? etc. In our consumerist economy it's very easy for people to make poor financial decisions. What people should do is save the extra money so that it can be invested in an asset that will produce money. Then you have a revenue stream.
Yeah, that 0.1% interest rate on the savings account will really pay off in a few hundred years.
I've learned from working in finance that if you don't have at least a certain minimum threshold of completely discretionary money to invest (many thousands), investing it in ANYTHING returns so little value it's basically worthless to even bother.
Well the $40 a week was a reference to a change in the payroll taxes.
I think I had a point somewhere in my head, buried under that thought. Something about how the disparity in wealth means that for some people, that $40 could literally be a windfall that makes all the difference. So rather than viewing them as being poor at managing their finances, what if they're really great... and that $40 to them is a months food or something.
And what if they just buy lottery tickets? Or a couple movies? etc. In our consumerist economy it's very easy for people to make poor financial decisions. What people should do is save the extra money so that it can be invested in an asset that will produce money. Then you have a revenue stream.
Well what does it take for this to have sufficient value to you? Does only one failure ruin it? Does only one success make the deal? Or is it about generating a net good thing, in which case there's really nothing more we can say without more research and evidence?
And what if they just buy lottery tickets? Or a couple movies? etc. In our consumerist economy it's very easy for people to make poor financial decisions. What people should do is save the extra money so that it can be invested in an asset that will produce money. Then you have a revenue stream.
Yeah, that 0.1% interest rate on the savings account will really pay off in a few hundred years.
I've learned from working in finance that if you don't have at least a certain minimum threshold of completely discretionary money to invest (many thousands), investing it in ANYTHING returns so little value it's basically worthless to even bother.
You're thinking in terms of stocks I suppose, cause dividends pay jack unless you own a boat load of shares. No, I'm talking more lucrative investments. Small businesses and what not. You can make money from very little if you're smart about it.
Well the $40 a week was a reference to a change in the payroll taxes.
I think I had a point somewhere in my head, buried under that thought. Something about how the disparity in wealth means that for some people, that $40 could literally be a windfall that makes all the difference. So rather than viewing them as being poor at managing their finances, what if they're really great... and that $40 to them is a months food or something.
And what if they just buy lottery tickets? Or a couple movies? etc. In our consumerist economy it's very easy for people to make poor financial decisions. What people should do is save the extra money so that it can be invested in an asset that will produce money. Then you have a revenue stream.
Pete, your plan is good except that most of those 0.1%-ers aren't getting a billion a year salary, they're getting stock dividends which are taxed as capital gains.
I believe short-term gains are taxed as standard income. The capital gains thing requires a certain period of time, and then the tax rate drops.
This tax structuring requires a restructuring of capital gains taxes as well. Do it as an inverse exponent; the rate of tax on capital gains is reduced by half for each year that you hold onto it. So 90% goes to 45% goes to 22.5% and so on.
I'm not an economist, but seriously, if we want things to work in this country, we need to outright take more money from people. That's it. It won't work any other way. Nobody's going to like it, and it has to happen.
And what if they just buy lottery tickets? Or a couple movies? etc. In our consumerist economy it's very easy for people to make poor financial decisions. What people should do is save the extra money so that it can be invested in an asset that will produce money. Then you have a revenue stream.
Yeah, that 0.1% interest rate on the savings account will really pay off in a few hundred years.
I've learned from working in finance that if you don't have at least a certain minimum threshold of completely discretionary money to invest (many thousands), investing it in ANYTHING returns so little value it's basically worthless to even bother.
You're thinking in terms of stocks I suppose, cause dividends pay jack unless you own a boat load of shares. No, I'm talking more lucrative investments. Small businesses and what not. You can make money from very little if you're smart about it.
What small businesses could I invest a few hundred dollars in and make a lot of money in? Wouldn't thousands be necessary for that sort of thing too?
Also, it's not just stocks, which can actually yield a good amount of additional income if you buy low/sell high and don't try to make money off dividends. It's also savings accounts and CDs and the like.
You're thinking in terms of stocks I suppose, cause dividends pay jack unless you own a boat load of shares. No, I'm talking more lucrative investments. Small businesses and what not. You can make money from very little if you're smart about it.
No, I'm thinking in terms of investments in general. Stocks are a small part of what I deal with.
You can't start a small or even invest in a small business without many thousands of dollars you are willing to lose. These investment vehicles are beyond the reach of the majority of people, are generally very high-risk, and have delayed payout with no access to the money in the interim in the event of an emergency.
If you think you can invest a few hundred dollars a month (a HUGE amount to most people) into ANYTHING and expect a reasonable return in a timely fashion, that's insane. Investments like that only exist for the wealthy.
And what if they just buy lottery tickets? Or a couple movies? etc. In our consumerist economy it's very easy for people to make poor financial decisions. What people should do is save the extra money so that it can be invested in an asset that will produce money. Then you have a revenue stream.
Yeah, that 0.1% interest rate on the savings account will really pay off in a few hundred years.
I've learned from working in finance that if you don't have at least a certain minimum threshold of completely discretionary money to invest (many thousands), investing it in ANYTHING returns so little value it's basically worthless to even bother.
You're thinking in terms of stocks I suppose, cause dividends pay jack unless you own a boat load of shares. No, I'm talking more lucrative investments. Small businesses and what not. You can make money from very little if you're smart about it.
What small businesses could I invest a few hundred dollars in and make a lot of money in? Wouldn't thousands be necessary for that sort of thing too?
Also, it's not just stocks, which can actually yield a good amount of additional income if you buy low/sell high and don't try to make money off dividends. It's also savings accounts and CDs and the like.
You can make money all kinds of different ways, the 99% just default to working for money. The 1% make money with money. Anyone can make money with money with a understanding of how money works.
I'm not an economist, but seriously, if we want things to work in this country, we need to outright take more money from people. That's it. It won't work any other way. Nobody's going to like it, and it has to happen.
How will taking money from the rich make life better for the rest of us?
How will taking money from the rich make life better for the rest of us?
Uh, investing in infrastructure and scientific research? Making public education not a joke? How about paying for health care for everyone?
Take whatever the government does, and fund it properly. You know that the FDA tests something like 1% of imports, right? And their budget is being slashed year after year? How about giving them the actual funding necessary to do their job?
You can make money all kinds of different ways, the 99% just default to working for money. The 1% make money with money. Anyone can make money with money with a understanding of how money works.
Bullshit.
The vehicles in which the 1% invests are not available to people who don't ALREADY have that much money. Some of them are LEGALLY not available unless you have a lot of money (e.g., hedge funds). Others are practically unavailable (VC investment is impossible unless you have money already).
All of the ways the 1% actually make their money that aren't direct salaries are literally impossible for people who aren't already rich to take advantage of. That is my professional opinion.
You can make money all kinds of different ways, the 99% just default to working for money. The 1% make money with money. Anyone can make money with money with a understanding of how money works.
As Rym just explained, no, you can not. You can only make money with money if you have a fuckton of money. If you try to make money with money and you don't have many thousands to spare, you do not have any reasonable risk/reward scenario. It's either high risk high reward, or low risk, low reward. If you are already mega rich many more investment opportunities appear that are low risk, high reward, that simply are not available to normal people.
Ok, but how does that help the people who need the extra $40 a week.
Because when they break their leg and go to the hospital, it won't ruin their entire lives. They will be able to carry on working hard as they have been instead of having their entire financial situation ruined by a single incident.
You can make money all kinds of different ways, the 99% just default to working for money. The 1% make money with money. Anyone can make money with money with a understanding of how money works.
Bullshit.
The vehicles in which the 1% invests are not available to people who don't ALREADY have that much money. Some of them are LEGALLY not available unless you have a lot of money (e.g., hedge funds). Others are practically unavailable (VC investment is impossible unless you have money already).
All of the ways the 1% actually make their money that aren't direct salaries are literally impossible for people who aren't already rich to take advantage of. That is my professional opinion.
Then how do you change that? Cause taxing the ever living fuck out of them isn't going to change that. Their money is in assets that actually make money. They'll just keep making money.
Ok, but how does that help the people who need the extra $40 a week.
Because when they break their leg and go to the hospital, it won't ruin their entire lives. They will be able to carry on working hard as they have been instead of having their entire financial situation ruined by a single incident.
You can make money all kinds of different ways, the 99% just default to working for money. The 1% make money with money. Anyone can make money with money with a understanding of how money works.
You're running into a pretty fundamental problem with many people's perspective on these issues: you don't actually grasp how big these numbers are. Nobody does. Not even the people making the money really get it.
You can make money with money, sure. Managing money and investing wisely gets you far. That's great. But it's mathematically impossible to take a $60,000/year salary and turn it into $100 million/year capital gains return - unless you have absolutely no expenses. And even then, it'll take a long time.
Rym makes something like 3 times my salary. The amount of interest he gets through investing is a pittance compared to serious investors. We're talking several orders of magnitude. If Rym gets like $50,000 per year in investment income, he'd need several eons in order to have the financial quarter that Apple just had.
EDIT:
Then how do you change that? Cause taxing the ever living fuck out of them isn't going to change that. Their money is in assets that actually make money. They'll just keep making money.
Sure, but we tax the fuck out of the new income and spend it on social programs to improve the quality of life for everyone.
This isn't about making everybody rich. This is about making sure that everyone can live comfortably.
You can make money all kinds of different ways, the 99% just default to working for money. The 1% make money with money. Anyone can make money with money with a understanding of how money works.
Bullshit.
The vehicles in which the 1% invests are not available to people who don't ALREADY have that much money. Some of them are LEGALLY not available unless you have a lot of money (e.g., hedge funds). Others are practically unavailable (VC investment is impossible unless you have money already).
All of the ways the 1% actually make their money that aren't direct salaries are literally impossible for people who aren't already rich to take advantage of. That is my professional opinion.
Then how do you change that? Cause taxing the ever living fuck out of them isn't going to change that. Their money is in assets that actually make money. They'll just keep making money.
That's the point! Taxing the fuck out of the rich won't make them poor. They will still be crazy ass rich! But the money we take away from them will be enough to make the lives of all the non-rich people drastically less shitty.
So if I want to get more than 2% interest on my savings, what is my best option? Mutual Funds? Is there anything like a co-op Hedge Fund? Should I just take my savings out and use it to buy fudge and die happily of diabetus?
So if I want to get more than 2% on interest on my savings, what is my best option? Mutual Funds? Is there anything like a co-op Hedge Fund? Should I just take my savings out and use it to buy fudge and die happily of diabetus?
Well if Rym is to be believed, you might as well buy fudge because you're fucked.
If you tax them too much they might just say, "fuck it. I got enough wealth so I don't need any new income. I'll just take my money out of the system and sit on it."
So if I want to get more than 2% on interest on my savings, what is my best option? Mutual Funds? Is there anything like a co-op Hedge Fund? Should I just take my savings out and use it to buy fudge and die happily of diabetus?
Well if Rym is to be believed, you might as well buy fudge because you're fucked.
It depends what you are saving for. If you want to save for retirement, just put as much into your 401k as is possible. If you put in enough you may just be able to make it when you retire. Maybe.
If you want to make a significant amount of money without working, and are willing to be risky, you can try the stock market. But, you may lose it all. It's risky. Less risky than lottery tickets, but still.
If you want to play it safe, just put your savings in something that is low interest and safe like money market accounts, bonds, savings accounds, CDs, etc. It's better than the 0% you are getting if the money just sits there.
If you want to get rich, your only real options are luck, like the lottery, or crazy hard work plus luck, but slightly less than lottery luck. That means you invest in yourself and get all entrepeneurial and shit. This can also be high risk depending on the size of your safety cushion. If you've got a couple years worth of salary saved, then you can make a go at it without risking homelessness.
If you find something that pays out more than 2% interest on savings with minimal risk, let me know because I'll be on that shit like cutie parks on pony asses.
Sure, but we tax the fuck out of the new income and spend it on social programs to improve the quality of life for everyone.
This isn't about making everybody rich. This is about making sure that everyone can live comfortably.
OK, great so helath care for everyone. But I'm still only making $15000 a year. I'm still poor as fuck. That's not comfortable.
We could take enough money from the very wealthiest Americans to pay absolutely everyone in the country a base wage of $60,000 per year. And properly fund widespread social programs.
And they'd still be richer than everyone else. That is how much money we're talking about here.
How about the 1% Robin Hood tax on all financial transactions that France is talking about? Will they just make an end run around the entire French market? Is the financial sector so detached from any kind of state law that they constitute a sovereign entity? Can anything other than a global government affect an unfettered global market?
Comments
Yesterday I had rice with pickles for lunch. Sometimes I add in some strips of chicken. If I want cookies I buy flour, eggs and such and bake from scratch. I save money but it costs me time. Currently I have a surplus of time so it works out.
Ramping the tax rate up to 1 million dollars is stupid. It should graduate up to, fuck, let's try $500 million per year. So graduate the marginal rate from 0 to that upper bound. Here are some arbitrary numbers:
0 - 15k: 0%
15 - 30k: 5%
30 - 60k: 10%
60 - 125k: 20%
125 - 250k: 25%
250 - 500k: 30%
500k - 1 million: 40%
1 - 2 million: 45%
2 - 5 million: 50%
5 - 10 million: 60%
10 - 20 million: 65%
20 - 50 million: 70%
50 - 100 million: 75%
100 - 250 million: 80%
250 - 500 million: 85%
500+ million: 90%
A 90% marginal rate doesn't sound so bad when you're pulling down a billion dollars in revenue. And this is probably a much more realistic tax grade in this country.
And I fail to understand how a high marginal rate is a disincentive to make more money. You still get more money if your gross income goes up - that's why it's a marginal tax rate. Take a scheme like the one up there. Let's look at a guy who makes $200 million and a guy who makes $300 million, gross.
$200 million per year guy gets $49.73 million - the total tax rate is about 75%.
$300 million per year guy gets $67.23 million, making his net income 35% higher than the 200 million guy.
You telling me that you wouldn't work harder to take home an extra $17.5 million per year?
And as for "high tax rates create an incentive to avoid taxes," the super-wealthy already avoid taxes, even at the relatively low tax rates we have now. That problem absolutely will not change.
Pete, your plan is good except that most of those 0.1%-ers aren't getting a billion a year salary, they're getting stock dividends which are taxed as capital gains.
I've learned from working in finance that if you don't have at least a certain minimum threshold of completely discretionary money to invest (many thousands), investing it in ANYTHING returns so little value it's basically worthless to even bother.
This tax structuring requires a restructuring of capital gains taxes as well. Do it as an inverse exponent; the rate of tax on capital gains is reduced by half for each year that you hold onto it. So 90% goes to 45% goes to 22.5% and so on.
I'm not an economist, but seriously, if we want things to work in this country, we need to outright take more money from people. That's it. It won't work any other way. Nobody's going to like it, and it has to happen.
Also, it's not just stocks, which can actually yield a good amount of additional income if you buy low/sell high and don't try to make money off dividends. It's also savings accounts and CDs and the like.
You can't start a small or even invest in a small business without many thousands of dollars you are willing to lose. These investment vehicles are beyond the reach of the majority of people, are generally very high-risk, and have delayed payout with no access to the money in the interim in the event of an emergency.
If you think you can invest a few hundred dollars a month (a HUGE amount to most people) into ANYTHING and expect a reasonable return in a timely fashion, that's insane. Investments like that only exist for the wealthy.
Take whatever the government does, and fund it properly. You know that the FDA tests something like 1% of imports, right? And their budget is being slashed year after year? How about giving them the actual funding necessary to do their job?
The vehicles in which the 1% invests are not available to people who don't ALREADY have that much money. Some of them are LEGALLY not available unless you have a lot of money (e.g., hedge funds). Others are practically unavailable (VC investment is impossible unless you have money already).
All of the ways the 1% actually make their money that aren't direct salaries are literally impossible for people who aren't already rich to take advantage of. That is my professional opinion.
You can make money with money, sure. Managing money and investing wisely gets you far. That's great. But it's mathematically impossible to take a $60,000/year salary and turn it into $100 million/year capital gains return - unless you have absolutely no expenses. And even then, it'll take a long time.
Rym makes something like 3 times my salary. The amount of interest he gets through investing is a pittance compared to serious investors. We're talking several orders of magnitude. If Rym gets like $50,000 per year in investment income, he'd need several eons in order to have the financial quarter that Apple just had.
EDIT: Sure, but we tax the fuck out of the new income and spend it on social programs to improve the quality of life for everyone.
This isn't about making everybody rich. This is about making sure that everyone can live comfortably.
If you want to make a significant amount of money without working, and are willing to be risky, you can try the stock market. But, you may lose it all. It's risky. Less risky than lottery tickets, but still.
If you want to play it safe, just put your savings in something that is low interest and safe like money market accounts, bonds, savings accounds, CDs, etc. It's better than the 0% you are getting if the money just sits there.
If you want to get rich, your only real options are luck, like the lottery, or crazy hard work plus luck, but slightly less than lottery luck. That means you invest in yourself and get all entrepeneurial and shit. This can also be high risk depending on the size of your safety cushion. If you've got a couple years worth of salary saved, then you can make a go at it without risking homelessness.
If you find something that pays out more than 2% interest on savings with minimal risk, let me know because I'll be on that shit like cutie parks on pony asses.
And they'd still be richer than everyone else. That is how much money we're talking about here.